Colombo deserves better

Municipal authorities have promised to make Colombo the garden city of Asia. It boasted of a special drive to beautify the city ahead of the International Indian Film Awards ceremony that is scheduled to begin on June 3.

Unfortunately the weather gods have been unkind to them. Torrential showers that lash the city and its suburbs are causing havoc. Most of the city roads are inundated. Half-an-hour's rain is sufficient to inundate the roads. It's not flood waters but storm waters that send massive volumes of water along the roadways.

Who is responsible for this sorry state of affairs? The responsibility could be placed on many. The lack of proper drainage facilities is one reason for which the Municipal authorities should be held responsible. There are also unauthorized constructions on the way side that block the drainage and cause flash floods. Here the Urban Development Authority as well as the Municipal Council should share the blame. It is a moot point why the authorities turned a blind eye to such intrusions. Was it political or monetary clout of the culprits or something else?

Unfinished repair works which keep mounds and mounds of earth, stone and debris also block the free flow of rain water to the drains. The city folk as well as visitors to the city are also to blame for their indiscriminate behaviour in throwing polythene and other material that block the flow and drain of water. This points to a lack of civic consciousness on the part of the population.

This is not something that has happened for the first time. It is the customary situation during the rainy season. Surely, there must be something wrong in the designing of the roads too. The neglect of certain city roads including those in which there is heavy traffic has aggravated the situation. This calls for timely repair and well planned management of the roads.

It was only Saturday that we pointed to the neglect of one of the oldest overhead bridges in the city, the one that spans across the railway line near Lake House. One revelation that came out of that news story is that the Colombo Municipal authorities were unaware that it was under their care. The Road Development Authority and the Municipal Authorities were passing the buck disclaiming responsibility. Had it not been for an alert news reporter nothing would have been noticed till a tragedy occurred.

We have also witnessed the sinking of motorable roads at certain places including Galle Road and Darley Road in Colombo. There too the Municipal authorities were nonplussed as to the reason and the repairs took a fairly long time.

We also see a swing bridge opposite the Colombo Commercial Company linking the James Peiris Mawatha with the islet in the Beira in a state of utter neglect.

Colombo deserves better.

Pragmatic decisions

Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena should be commended for two pragmatic decisions. They are to allow school authorities to handle admissions and term tests. The Daily News has in the past constantly reminded the authorities to do just that. After all, it was inconceivable why the Ministry could not hand over these two jobs to the school authorities if they could entrust the more responsible job of teaching the students to the Principals and the tutorial staff.

True, there were shortcomings in certain schools and allegations of bribery and corruption were there. The remedy was to institute a strict monitoring and surveillance system and bring the crooks before Courts.

Bribery and corruption did not end with the transfer of responsibility to the Ministry or Zonal administrators. In fact, it increased several fold. The mess made by the Education Secretary once when the entire Grade One admissions were taken over by the Ministry is too well-known to be retold here. It resulted in children waiting almost till the end of the first schoolterm to get admitted to a school. Even the much boasted computer program that was supposed to eliminate human errors in admissions could not prevent multiple school admissions to the same child. Despotically the Secretary did not even allow parents to be present with the appeals when they found injustices in the selection process.

While these decisions would ease the burden to some extent the remedy is really long-term. It is by providing equal and up to date facilities in all schools, particularly by improving physical and human resources in rural and underprivileged schools in urban and estate areas that a long-term solution could be found when parents find no need to scramble for a place in an elite schools for their children.